Cutting Glass Bottles (with Fire)

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I feel like it goes without saying, really, but this video is Not Safe For Work unless your boss doesn’t mind long strings of swears and blasphemes. It involves me attempting the bottle-cutting pin where you light things on fire. Spoiler: It did not go well. (If you can’t see the video, click here.)

83 Comments

Sonja, I seriously suggest that if you are burning things, you pull your hair back first. Seriously. Your whole head could have gone up in flames! Second, if you ever worked in a bar or restaurant with a bar, you might have witnessed drinking glasses exploding after being taken from the (very hot) dishwasher and filled with ice and water. Glass doesn’t like that. So this whole thing might have gone better (maybe) if: a) the glass was hotter (had burned longer); and, b) the water was ice cold. Not that I think you’ll try it again, but in case you do something similar…

hahahaha omg so first of all– I can’t believe you didn’t wash your hands after tying the tshirt! Your hands were covered in flammable acetone and then you were holding a bottle that was lit on fire. I was waiting for an ambulance, honestly! Also, I tried this (like 5 times in a row) last year letting it burn for a LOOONG time and dunking it in a sink filled with ice water (literal ice. in water.) and it didn’t do shit. Except make my husband reevaluate marrying me. So yea— this pin sucks. But I’m glad you’re still alive and non-crispy!

This could theoretically work! If, after suddenly cooling your bottle you kinda smashed the top of it, since the bit that was on fire should be the most brittle you *might* get it to break in the right spot… Slash you could just buy a tile cutter thing and use that to cut the glass without burning anything. (Also, unless you smooth the edges out with sandpaper you’ll probably cut yourself trying to drink from one of these bottle cup things)

So I can’t help but wonder after reading the comments if this would work if you used straight acetone from the hardware store. Up until a bad experience trying to remove gel nails last year I didn’t realize it wasn’t the same thing. I mean I know your not trying it again but I still want to know lol

Thank you for doing this! I WAS going to but since Im more of a scaredy cat than you, I’ve decided not to after watching this video haha! Hope you recovered ok, I think I screamed louder than you did LOL!

OMG! Love the hair, loved the boob shot & you set things on fire. My girl crush is complete. FWIW, I tried this using cotton thread & it worked, only the edges of my cut bottle were all jagged and scary & I’m too lazy to sand that shit out.

I am SO glad you did this one! I was hoping you would be my martyr so that I wouldn’t have to try it. I was too scared. So, thanks! Also, this one is hilarious, and I’m sorry it was at your expense. Glad you didn’t burn the house down!

Omg. I LITERALLY lol-ed for 99% of this video! I love love love your hair. And please don’t die of scared. That would be terrible. But would also make a great statement on your headstone. “Pintester. Died of scared testing this shit. Penis.”

First, I seriously love that you went for the pink hair. I was a bit worried that you were going to dye it to match and be all boring, but I should have known better.
Second, I’m not a video person, I don’t like them, I don’t like when people send them but please, please, please promise that you will always video when fire or alcohol are involved. Because that’s just good programming. So good I’m sharing on FB with people I don’t even like.

I’ve done this and it worked! I had help from my boyfriend though because i too would have dropped the flaming bottle. He didn’t like the acetone so he decided to bring the tank of gasoline in the house. We were drunk. It was awesome. And we’re both still alive.

I remember we cut and bent glass rods in high school chemistry, but even then, we had to etch all the way around where we wanted to cut. Perhaps it would work if the glass was etched before fire was applied, but considering how many of those hollow rods exploded that day, still not a good idea.

I’m with you on hating this pin. It’s a disasterous time bomb in the making.

Yeah, that’s exactly what happened to me when I tried cutting a bottle that way! It went crazy on fire right away, and then didn’t do anything to the bottle once I put the fire out after like 40 seconds… I did end up making some gorgeous goblets out of beer bottles, but I definitely had to use an actual commercial bottle cutter to do it. 🙂 http://practicallyfunctional.net/2013/03/recycled-beer-bottle-goblets/

Hilarious video. My safety senses were tingling, though. I hate to be the asshole coming in here saying, “You did it wrong!” But there’s a difference between making a shitty cocktail and burning the whole house down. I would hate to see this site going away due to home insurance claims because it makes me laugh so fucking hard. Some things to consider IF you try this ever again (or if someone else tries it): 1) I don’t think the nail polish remover in the cat butt squeegee things is pure acetone, pretty sure there’s other stuff in there. You can get pure acetone for cheap though, it’s by the other nail polish removers and it’s like $2 a bottle. 2) The t-shirt spread the heat too much around the bottle, you want the heat in a very thin strip, which cotton yarn would do. It also created a much larger flame than yarn would. Cotton yarn is like $2 a skein at Walmart. 3) It’s the difference in temperature that makes the glass brittle, so you want to do ice cold water in the sink rather than a pitcher. Also another thing that I saw you considering is the fact that you have to turn the bottle to put it in the pitcher, which is no bueno. 4) Like you said, take the label off.

Jesus Christ, Sonja, you scared the shit out of me with that one! I’ll be the cranky old safety officer here; I don’t care if everyone goes “boo” and gives me the finger. You had flammable goo, fire, and potentially breaking glass. You should have been wearing some heavy cotton or wool gloves and SAFETY GLASSES. Your eyes, your eyes! And yeah, tie your newly-pink-flashed hair back. Fuck that pin.

I never leave comments but this was by far the best video that you have ever done! I sat here laughing and yelling “Don’t do it. Don’t light the string.” You had to go and do it. Nothing will ever be better then this one so you might as well go out on a bang and retire!

Holy effing hell – I don’t think I’ve ever clenched my butt for that long. I sincerely hope you got very drunk when you were finished. That said – and I hate to do this to you – this pin totally does work. I made an entire window for my bathroom out of the bottoms of beer bottles. I am the most craft-impaired person around (I’d challenge you to a sucky pin-off any day) and I was able to do it. True story.

Here’s the thing – you need 100% acetone and you MUST use string. It’s much narrower & can put much more pressure on the bottle than a wet t-shirt. (Insert boob joke here). You soak the string, wrap it tightly 3 or 4 times around the bottle, light it, let it burn out on its own, dunk it COLD water for about 5 seconds and then tap the bottle with a butter knife (or similar instrument) and it falls right off. I had to do it 36 times for my window so trust me – this method works for real.

Also, take the label off, wash your hands before lighting anything, do it OUTSIDE and keep that sweet dog of yours far, far from the action. I’m all for a good pin fail but safety first! Besides, if you end up all dead (either from fear or crafticide) we’d all be way sad. Don’t do that to us. 🙁

I’ve done this to make glasses out of my favorite wine bottles, chosen for the pretty labels. I kept the labels on and they weren’t even singed. It helped me to use a glass cutter before using the fire, if only to help me keep the string level.

After seeing your facebook post the day before this that read,”I just did a pin test that almost made me cry, guys. Video tomorrow.” Then I come here and it’s about glass and fire. I was contemplating on watching it, cause I don’t want to see you maimed. But awesome hair! Terrifying video!

OMFG!!! I am sitting on my couch with tears literally streaming down my face right now and my cheeks hurt really bad from laughing so much at this video!! BEST ONE YET!!! My boyfriend asked me if I was going to live because I am laughing so hard. Thank you so much for putting your life at risk for our pure entertainment!!! 🙂

Thank you for taking one for the team and doing this so I don’t have to. I don’t care how many people say it works – if it doesn’t work for you it won’t for me either! I’ll stick to glass cutting without fire.

I tried this same exact thing last week! My boyfriend didnt believe me that it would work.. He was right.. I tried 3 times in a row and, nothing — The 4th time I tried, I guess I had left over acetone on my hands because the satan like flame ran up my hands and I dropped the bottle into the sink (where the cup of acetone was) and set my whole sink on fire. luckily I had the bucket of cold water next to me…. (a fair amount of bloody mary’s were in my system at this point) — I tried it on a wine bottle, thats probably too thick, I’m going to try it on a thin beer bottle again..

Thank you for trying this. I could not laugh because I myself was freaked out too. I screamed at my laptop. Goggles and gloves!! I am sure you heard me right. I really want or wanted to try this but I am a HUGE chicken shit.

[…] In Madam Pintester’s attempt she made a vlog. And also failed pretty hard. But it’s okay, because she had pretty hair. Man I miss dying my hair!! So…I attempted to also shoot some videos. They’re still on my phone as of right now, but maybe by the end of this post they’ll be on YouTube and I’ll embed them. WE’LL SEE. […]

I actually have done this and have gotten it to work you need to use like a large bucket with really cold water even put ice in it yarn works best as long as it’s cotton and the flame dies down and that’s when you dunk it in the water and viola make sure you sand it so it doesn’t cut you. Practice makes perfect too, took me a few try’s to get it, plus when I did this outside wasn’t the best since it was very windy so did this in my garage.

[…] not lighting things on fire just to pander to the wishes of the general public. People love it when I burn things. Preferably when I burn things and then freak out about it. There is some freaking out in this […]

That is scary!!! It is really not good to try something which you are not ready and you don’t know the entire process well most specially that it is dealing with fire. I believe that it was wrong to use pitcher to cut off the fire because the space is just too small and the water needs to be cold as well. Though, I hope that you will still have the guts to try it again. -http://www.jordonglass.com/